The buried bomb did not tick, but its silent, radioactive presence began to poison the atmosphere at Aura Management. On the surface, things were better than ever. The success of "Hollow (Ghosts' Anthem)" was still cresting, and Aura Chimera was the darling of the music world. But underneath the veneer of victory, the cracks Nam Gyu-ri had so carefully etched into their foundation began to widen.
The secrecy of the "inner circle" was the primary catalyst. Yoo-jin, Chae-rin, and Min-ji, now bound by the shared, heavy knowledge of their unusable weapon, developed a new, quieter intensity. They would have brief, hushed conversations in the hallway that would end abruptly when someone else approached. They would share loaded glances across the conference room table that the others couldn't decipher. They were carrying the weight of their cold war, and it made them seem distant, conspiratorial, and fundamentally separate from the rest of their family.
Kang Ji-won, his mind already a fertile ground for suspicion, saw this new dynamic and interpreted it through the lens of his deepest fears. The anonymous email was no longer just a question; it was the framework through which he viewed every action Yoo-jin took. The closed-door meetings were not about protecting the company; they were about planning the next grand manipulation. Chae-rin wasn't a traumatized artist finding her strength; she was Yoo-jin's new, favored accomplice.
His paranoia began to bleed into his work. The creative process, once his only refuge, now felt like a potential trap. He became sullen and uncooperative in creative meetings for Aura Chimera's upcoming album.
During one session, Yoo-jin was listening to a new instrumental track Ji-won had developed. It was technically brilliant but lacked a strong, central hook.
"It's a great foundation, Ji-won," Yoo-jin offered, his tone constructive. "But the chorus feels like it's holding back. It needs a more definitive melodic statement. What if we tried lifting the chord progression here, moving to a major key for just four bars to create a sense of release?"
A year ago, Ji-won would have considered the suggestion, argued its merits, and probably improved upon it. Now, he heard something else entirely. He heard the puppet master pulling his strings.
He looked up from his keyboard, his eyes cold. "Why don't you just tell me what the song should be, Yoo-jin?" he snarled, the bitterness sharp in his voice. "Just hum the melody you already have planned out in your head. It would save us all a lot of time. Since you seem to have it all mapped out in advance anyway."
The outburst was so sudden, so venomous, that it stunned the room into silence. Jin and Chae-rin stared at him, shocked.
It was Da-eun who broke the silence, and her words were not a defense of Yoo-jin. Her own seeds of doubt, planted by her father's unsettling questions and nurtured by Director Yoon's silky words, had taken root. She saw Ji-won's paranoia not as an irrational outburst, but as a validation of her own growing unease.
"He has a point, CEO-nim," she said, her arms crossed, her voice carefully neutral but carrying an undeniable undercurrent of challenge. "You've been… different lately. Distant. All these secret meetings with Chae-rin and Min-ji. It feels like we're not being told the whole story. It feels like you don't trust us."
Her words, combined with Ji-won's, formed a united front of suspicion. The accusation hung in the air, a direct challenge to his leadership, to the very foundation of trust their company was built on. Jin and Min-young looked back and forth between them, their faces a mask of confusion and alarm. The family was fighting in front of them.
Yoo-jin was trapped. He looked at their faces—Ji-won's resentful glare, Da-eun's questioning stare—and he knew he couldn't tell them the truth. He couldn't talk about the Honey Trap, about Hana, about the recording that was now a nuclear deterrent sitting in their server. To reveal the existence of that secret would be to risk a leak that could detonate the entire company. But his silence, he realized with a sickening certainty, was being interpreted as guilt.
His attempt to protect them was the very thing that was pushing them away.
He activated his Producer's Eye, a desperate, diagnostic impulse.
[Target: Kang Ji-won]
[Core Emotion: Resentment (80%)]
[Trait: Trust Erosion (B-Rank)]
[Description: Core trust in leadership has been significantly compromised by external manipulation and perceived secrecy. Subject now views creative guidance as a form of manipulation and control.]
[Target: Ahn Da-eun]
[Core Emotion: Suspicion (75%)]
[Trait: Trust Erosion (B-Rank)]
[Description: Core trust in leadership has been significantly compromised. Subject now views leader's foresight and strategic success as evidence of hidden, potentially unethical information-gathering methods.]
The diagnosis was grim. The virus Nam Gyu-ri had injected into their system was working perfectly. She had successfully weaponized his own competence against him. His artists were starting to believe that his genius wasn't a gift; it was a deception.
Yoo-jin was at a complete loss. He was fighting a two-front war. On the outside, a cold war against a global superpower. And on the inside, a quiet, heartbreaking civil war against the very people he was trying to protect. He was losing his team, and he couldn't even tell them why. The cracks in their armor were no longer hairline fractures; they were deep, gaping wounds, and he was beginning to fear they were irreparable.